Unfogging the Future: Philosopher's Stone
by Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah
Summary: The Marauders and Lily find a certain book. This is what happens when they read it.Disclaimer: i do not own these characters or harry potter.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Boy who Lived

The Gryffindor Common Room was almost empty. The only inhabitants were 4 boys and one girl. The boys were whispering to each other and the girl was reading in the corner. She put down her book and hesitantly walked over to the 4 boys, the Marauders. The tallest one, Remus Lupin looked at her.

"Lils, what do you want?" he asked.

"I'm bored. I finished my book." She mumbled. Remus smiled.

"Can I borrow it?" The others looked up.

"It is the holidays." Said one, Sirius Black.

"You don't need to read." Finished his best friend, James Potter. The remaining boy, Peter Pettigrew, suddenly squeaked and everyone looked at him.

"Who threw a book at me?" he asked, picking a book off the floor next to him. It was red and it had a picture of a boy that looked similar to James on the front. Remus plucked it out of his hand and examined it.

"Well, what is it called?" asked James.

"Uh, Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone." Answered Remus. "Are you related to anyone called Harry Potter, James?" James shook his head as Remus passed the book to Lily.

"Maybe we should check the publishing date or whatever it is called." Suggested Lily as she opened the book. "It says here... that..." she paused in shock. "It was published in 1997. That's like 18 years away." Sirius and James looked vaguely interested but, as it was a book, didn't actually want to read it. Lily closed the book and turned to the back cover. She read aloud. "**Harry Potter thinks he is an ordinary boy – until he is rescued by an owl, taken to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, learns to play Quidditch and does battle in a deadly duel. The Reason... HARRY POTTER IS A WIZARD!**" James, Sirius and Peter had started to play exploding snap.

"Doesn't it interest you, Prongs, that this Harry Potter _may_ be your son?" Remus asked, sniggering as James widened his eyes.

"Sirius, Peter? Do you want to read the book with Lily, Remus and I?" he asked. Lily laughed. "I may be a toerag but I do care about what will happen to my son. _If it is my son_. I want to know what happens to him and why he has his own book." Lily grinned.

"Well, you can read first then." Ordered Remus. "And Sirius, please listen. It may be interesting."

James opened the page to the first chapter. "**The Boy who lived.**"

"Oh, so exciting." Sirius said sarcastically. Lily gave him a death glare.

**Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, ****thank**** you very ****much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.**

"Where is Harry?" James wondered aloud.

"This is boring, who cares about muggles? Especially ones like this." Sirius moaned. Lily looked confused and Remus, who was good friends with Lily and had been to her house once or twice was also looking confused as he recognised the name.

**Mr Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills.**

"Drills?" asked Sirius.

"Lily's sisters fiancé makes drills, which are muggle things used to make holes in walls and stuff." Said Remus, who soon had a look of enlightenment on his face. "Lils, your sister's fiancé is called Vernon Dursley and works at a place called Grunnings."

Lily paled but recovered quickly. "What would she be doing in a book about Potter's son?"

**He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large ****mustache****. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the ****neighbors**

"It sounds like Petunia." Lily groaned. "If this means what I think it means, then I am going to be sick" James was grinning. He had always had a crush on Lily and if he was right, then he was going to be the happiest man alive.

**The ****Dursleys**** had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.**

**"**I'm sure, if he is related to that pig, he _is _going to be very handsome." Remus laughed.

"And that horse." Barked Sirius. Lily grinned before bursting into laughter.

**The ****Dursleys**** had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it.**

"Oh no, what is it?" Lily laughed. "Her biggest fear is someone finding out about me. But it isn't Petunia so I have no idea." James inched closer to Lily.

**They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters.**

"Okay, now they want to keep families secret." Said Peter.

"James, what have you done to these poor people that would make them want to keep you secret?" asked Sirius, jokingly.

**Mrs. Potter was Mrs. ****Dursley's**** sister, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as ****unDursleyish**** as it was possible to be.**

"She can't be my sister, because I would not marry Potter." Mumbled Lily.

"It hasn't said anything about you being married to me. You just assumed it." Said James.

"There are a lot of clues Lily. Once we find out the name of this _Mrs __Dursley _and her husband we'll tell you if you are married to James." Remus said sensibly. Lily frowned.

**The ****Dursleys**** shuddered to think what the ****neighbors**** would say if the Potters arrived in the street. The ****Dursleys**** know that the Potters had a small son, too, but they had never seen him.**

"What!?" yelled Sirius. "James has a son? We planned to be bachelors together!" Remus rolled his eyes.

"No, you planned to be a bachelor with James. He never said he wanted to be a bachelor with you." Explained Remus. Lily, however, was looking scared.

"This means Potter has reproduced." She said slowly. "The world is doomed." James smirked and continued reading.

**This boy was another good reason for keeping the Potters away; they didn't want Dudley mixing with a child like that.**

"HEY!" yelled James.

"Don't talk to the book." Muttered Sirius.

**When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts,**

"Hasn't it already started?" Lily wondered.

**there**** was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr. Dursley hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for ****work,**** and Mrs. Dursley gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair.**

"BRAT!" all 5 said.

**None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window.**

"Idiots." Sirius smirked.

**At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Dursley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye, but missed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls.**

"I always that Petunia would spoil her kid and he'd end up just like this." Lily said.

"Who said Mrs Dursley was Petunia?" asked James, grinning.

"**Little tyke," chortled Mr. Dursley as he left the house. He got into his car and backed out of number four's drive.**

**It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar - a cat reading a map.**

"An animagus possibly?" James asked and Sirius nodded. They were the best at transfiguration in the year because secretly they were animagi themselves.

**For a second, Mr. Dursley didn't realize what he had seen - then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn't a map in sight. What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. Mr. Dursley blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back.**

"Do you think it is McGonagall?" asked Lily.

"No, that would be spooky. Especially around people like these!" James and Sirius agreed. Remus laughed.

**As Mr. Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive - no, **_**looking**_** at the sign; cats couldn't read maps or signs.** **Mr. Dursley gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his mind. As he drove toward town he thought of nothing except a large order of drills he was hoping to get that day.**

"Oh my God. He actually looks forward to things like that?" said Peter. They all jumped, as they had forgotten about Peter.

**But on the edge of town, drills were driven out of his mind by something else. **

"How hard." Snorted Sirius.

**As he sat in his usual morning traffic jam, he couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. ****People in cloaks.**** Mr. Dursley couldn't bear people who dressed in funny clothes - the getups you saw on young people! He supposed this was some stupid new fashion. **

"No, just some wizards." Smiled Sirius.

"Why are they dressing like that in public though? Isn't it illegal or something?" asked Lily.

**He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell on a huddle of these weirdoes standing quite close by. They were whispering excitedly together. Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them weren't young at all; why, that man had to be older than he was, and wearing an emerald green cloak! ****The nerve of him.**** But then it struck Mr. Dursley that this was probably some silly stunt - these people were obviously collecting for something**

"Obviously." Drawled Lily.

**…yes, that would be it. The traffic moved on and a few minutes later, Mr. Dursley arrived in the Grunnings parking lot, his mind back on drills.**

**Mr. Dursley always sat with his back to the window in his office on the ninth floor. If he hasn't, he might have found it harder to concentrate on drills that morning. **

"It must be very hard already, with his lack of concentration." Said Remus.

_**He**_** didn't see the owls swooping past in broad daylight, though people down in the street did; they pointed and gazed open-mouthed as owl after owl sped overhead. Most of them had never seen an owl, even at ****nighttime****. Mr. Dursley, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning. He yelled at five different people. He made several important telephone calls and shouted a bit more. He was in a very good mood until lunchtime, when he thought he'd stretch his legs and walk across the road to buy ****himself**** a bun from the bakery.**

**He'd forgotten all about the people in cloaks until he passed a group of them next to the baker's. ****He**** eyed them angrily as he passed. He didn't know why, but they made him uneasy. **

"Oh dear. Are we supposed to feel sympathy for this idiot?" asked Sirius.

**This bunch were**** whispering excitedly, too, and he couldn't see a single collecting tin. It was on his way back past them, clutching a large doughnut in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were saying.**

"**The Potters, that's right, that's what I heard -"**

"What about me?" James asked.

"**-****yes****, their son, Harry-"**

**Mr. Dursley stopped dead. Fear flooded him.**

"How is James so scary?" asked Peter. James glared and Peter quickly hid behind Remus. Lily laughed.

**He looked back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it.**

**He dashed back across the road, hurried up to his office, snapped at his secretary not to disturb him, seized his telephone, and had almost finished ****dialling**** his home number when he changed his mind. He put the receiver back down and stroked his ****moustache**

"Not stroking the moustache!" Lily yelled melodramatically. She received a few strange looks.

**thinking…****no he was being stupid. Potter wasn't such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of people called Potter who had a son named Harry. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure his nephew **_**was**_** called Harry. He'd never seen the boy. It might have been Harvey. ****Or Harold.**

"Don't even know the name of your nephew." Sighed Sirius.

**There was no point in worrying Mrs. Dursley; she always got upset at any mention of her sister. He didn't blame her - if **_**he'd**_** had a sister like that…but all the same, those people in cloaks…**

**He found it a lot harder to concentrate on drills that afternoon and when he left the building at five o' clock, he was still so worried that he walked straight into someone just outside the door.**

"**Sorry," he grunted, as the tiny old man stumbled and almost fell. It was a few seconds before Mr. Dursley realized that the man was wearing a violet cloak. He didn't seem at all upset at being almost knocked to the ground. On the contrary, his face split into a wide smile and he said in a squeaky voice **

"That sounds Flitwick, doesn't it?" Lily asked.

**that**** made passersby stare, "Don't be sorry, my dear sir, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice, for You-Know-Who has gone at last! Even Muggles like ****yourself**** should be celebrating this happy, happy day!"**

"Has Voldemort...gone?" whispered James. Lily nodded. Sirius jumped about but Remus looked very serious.

"It will have come at a price though. Voldemort isn't going to just disappear." Lily also went grim.

**And the old man hugged Mr. Dursley around the middle and walked off.**

**Mr. Dursley stood rooted to the spot. He had been hugged by a complete stranger. He also thought he had been called a Muggle, whatever that was. **

"A non-magic" yelled Sirius.

**He was rattled. He hurried to his car and set off for home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn't approve of imagination.**

"Well, you must have a very interesting life." Murmured Lily.

**As he pulled into the driveway of number four, the first thing he saw - and it didn't improve his mood - was the tabby cat he'd spotted that morning. It was now sitting on his garden wall. He was sure it was the same one; it had the same markings around its eyes.**

"**Shoo!" said Mr. Dursley loudly.**

**The cat didn't move. It just gave him a stern look. **

"I think it is McGonagall. I know that look." Though James, aloud.

**Was this normal cat ****behavior****? Mr. Dursley wondered. Trying to pull himself together, he let himself into the house. He was still determined not to mention anything to his wife.**

**Mrs. Dursley had had a nice, normal day. She told him over dinner all about Mrs. Next Door's problems with her daughter and how Dudley had learned a new word ("Shan't").**

"Spoilt." They all shouted and then started giggling.

**Mr. Dursley tried to act normally. When Dudley had been put to bed, he went into the living room in time to catch the last report on the evening news.**

"**And finally, bird-watchers everywhere have reported that the nation's owls have been behaving very unusually today. Although owls normally hunt at night and are hardly ever seen in daylight, **

"That's what you think" muttered Sirius.

**there**** have been hundreds of sightings of these birds flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are unable to explain why the owls have suddenly changed their sleeping pattern." The newscaster allowed himself a grin. ****"Most mysterious.****And now, over to Jim ****McGuffin**** with the weather.**** Going to be anymore showers of owls tonight, Jim?"**

"Funny." Said Remus, sarcastically. Peter was in tears.

"**Well, Ted," said the weatherman, "I don't know about that, but it's not only the owls that have been acting oddly today. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they've had a downpour of shooting stars! Perhaps people have been celebrating Bonfire night early - it's not until next week, folks! But I can promise a wet night tonight."**

**Mr. Dursley sat frozen in his armchair. ****Shooting stars all over Britain?****Owls flying by daylight?****Mysterious people in cloaks all over the place?****And a whisper, a whisper about the Potters…**

"Maybe something has happened. You know, like Voldemort being gone." Lily said. Peter squeaked.

**Mrs. Dursley came into the living room carrying two cups of tea. It was no good. He'd have to say something to her. He cleared his throat nervously. **"**Er**** - Petunia, dear - you haven't heard from you sister lately, ****have**** you?"**

**As he had expected, Mrs. Dursley looked shocked and angry. After all, they normally pretended she didn't have a sister.**

"I think it might be Petunia, he did just call her that" Said Remus.

"Well, she is acting the same. I'm amazed she hasn't called me a freak already." Lily said, hesitantly. James was shocked that she didn't deny that she was possibly married to him.

"**No," she said sharply. "Why?"**

"**Funny stuff on the news," Mr. Dursley mumbled. "Owls…shooting stars…and there were a lot of funny-looking people in town today…"**

"_**So?"**_** snapped Mrs. Dursley.**

"**Well, I just thought…maybe…it was something to do with…you ****know…**_**her crowd.**_**"**

**Mrs. Dursley sipped her tea through pursed lips. Mr. Dursley wondered whether he dared tell her he'd the name "Potter." He decided he didn't dare. Instead, as casually as he could, "Their son - he'd be about Dudley's age now, wouldn't he?"**

"**I suppose so," said Mrs. Dursley stiffly.**

"**What's his name again? Howard isn't it?"**

"**Harry. Nasty, common name if you ask me."**

"Whatever, just jealous that I got James and you ended up with a fat pig." Lily snarled. James grinned.

"You called him James." Noticed Sirius. Lily blushed and unconsciously moved closer to James.

"**Oh, yes," said Mr. Dursley, his heart sinking horribly. "Yes, I quite agree."**

**He didn't say another word on the subject as they went upstairs to bed. While Mrs. Dursley was in the bathroom, Mr. Dursley crept to the bedroom window and peered down into the front garden. The cat was still there. It was staring down Privet Drive as though it were waiting for something.**

**Was he imagining things? Could all this have anything to do with the Potters? If I did…if it got out that they were related to a pair of - well, well he didn't think he could bear it.**

"Of what?" growled Lily.

**The ****Dursleys**** got into bed. Mrs. Dursley fell asleep quickly but Mr. Dursley lay awake, turning it all over in his mind. He last, comforting thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Potters **_**were**_** involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and Mrs. Dursley. The Potters knew very well wheat he and Petunia thought about them and their kind…He couldn't see how he and Petunia could get mixed up in anything that might be going on - ****he**** yawned and turned over - it couldn't affect **_**them**_**…**

**How very wrong he was.**

"Hah!" said Lily and Sirius raised an eyebrow.

**Mr. Dursley might have been drifting into and easy sleep, but the cat on the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness. It was sitting as still as a statue, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far corner of Privet Drive. It didn't ****so**** much as quiver when a car door slammed on the next street, nor when two owls swooped overhead. In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all.**

**A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so suddenly and silently you'd have thought he'd just popped out of the ground. The cat's tail twitched and its eyes narrowed.**

"Definitely McGonagall." All 4 boys said.

**Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man's name was ****Albus**** Dumbledore.**

"Yay! He'll explain about the Voldemort scenario." Celebrated Lily.

**Albus**** Dumbledore didn't seem to realize that he had just arrived in a street where ****everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome. **

"I wonder why, if Tuna lives there." Lily laughed.

**He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realize he was being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, "I should have known."**

"Known what?" asked James, eager to prove that the cat was McGonagall.

**He found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street light went out with a little pop. He clicked it again - the next lamp flickered into darkness. Twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer, until the only lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone looked out of their window now, even beady-eyes Mrs. Dursley, they wouldn't be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement.**

"That is so cool. It is definitely something we need for our pranks." Sirius grinned.

**Dumbledore slipped the Put-Outer back inside his cloak and set off down the street toward number four, where he sat on the wall next to the cat. He didn't look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it.**

"**Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall."**

"YES! I knew it!" shouted James.

"So did we all." Muttered Lily.l

**He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead he was smiling at a rather sever-looking woman who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had around its eyes**** She, too, was wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her black hair was drawn into a tight bun. She looked distinctly ruffled.**

"I love that description." Mentioned Sirius.

"**How did you know it was me?" she asked.**

"**My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly."**

"**You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day," said Professor McGonagall.**

"**All day?**** When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here."**

**Professor McGonagall sniffed angrily.**

"Why? Isn't Voldemort dead?" asked Sirius. "What does she have to be angry about?"

"**Oh yes, everyone's celebrating, all right," she said impatiently. "You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no - even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news." She jerked her head back at the ****Dursley's**** dark living-room window. "I heard it. Flocks of ****owls…shooting stars…Well they're not completely stupid. They ****wee**** bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent - I'll bet that was ****Dedalus****Diggle****. He never had much sense."**

"Poor Dedalus Diggle." Sighed Lily.

**You can't blame them," said Dumbledore gently. "We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years."**

"**I know that," said Professor McGonagall irritably. "But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping ****rumors****."**

"She should be a bit worried ." reasoned Remus.

**She threw a sharp, sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as though hoping he was going to tell her something, but he didn't, so she went on.**

"**A fine thing it would be it, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore?"**

"**It certainly seems so," said Dumbledore. "We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?"**

"Voldemort is gone and Dumbledore is going around offering people Lemon Drops."

"**A **_**what?"**_

"**A lemon drop.**** They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of."**

"**No thank you," said Professor McGonagall coldly, as though she didn't think this was the moment for lemon drops.**

"I agree." Said Sirius sternly, which was unusual for Sirius.

**As I say, even if You-Know-Who **_**has **_**gone -"**

"**My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like ****yourself**** can call him by his name? All this 'You-Know-Who' nonsense - for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: **_**Voldemort."**_

Peter flinched and the others gave him sympathetic looks.

**Professor McGonagall flinched, but Dumbledore, who was unsticking two lemon drops, seemed not to notice. "It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never found any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name."**

"**I know you haven't," said Professor McGonagall, sounding half exasperated, half admiring. "But you're different. You're the only one ****You-****Know- oh, all right, **_**Voldemort,**_** was frightened of."**

"**You flatter me," said Dumbledore calmly. "Voldemort had powers I will never have."**

"**Only because you're too - well - **_**noble**_** to use them."**

"**It's lucky it's so dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam ****Pomfrey**** told me she liked my new earmuffs."**

"What?" asked Lily. "This is weird."

**Professor McGonagall shot a sharp look at Dumbledore and said, "The owls are nothing next to the **_**rumors**_** that are flying around. You know what everyone's saying? ****About why he's disappeared?**** About what finally stopped ****hi****m?"**

**It seemed that Professor McGonagall had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss,**

"yes, please tell us Dumbledore." They whined, eager to hear what had happened.

**the**** real reason she had been waiting on a cold, hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a woman had she fixed Dumbledore with a more piercing stare as she did now. It was plain that whatever "everyone" was saying, she was not going to believe it until Dumbledore told her it was true. Dumbledore, however, was choosing another lemon drop and did not answer.**

"Come on."

**What they're **_**saying**_**," she pressed on, "is that last night Voldemort turned up in ****Godric's**** Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The ****rumor**** is Lily and James Potter **

James dropped the book and picked up Lily, spinning her round. Lily wasn't very happy but even she admitted later that anything was better than what Petunia ended up with. It may have been this thought that made her kiss James on the cheek and hand him the book, blushing slightly. The remaining Marauders were grinning at James' increasing success with Lily Evans, love of his life.

**are**** - are - that they're - **_**dead."**_

They were silent. James dropped the book again and Lily's eyes welled up with tears.

"I marry Lily and then we...die." James whispered. "The universe is so unfair."

Lily launched herself at James and hugged him. Although James seemed happy, he still felt solemn and instead of hugging back, picked up the book and kept reading.

**Dumbledore bowed his head. Professor McGonagall gasped.**

"**Lily and James…I can't believe it…I didn't want to believe it…Oh, ****Albus****…"**

"She is sad for us."

**Dumbledore reached out and patted her on the shoulder. "I know…I know…" he said heavily.**

**Professor McGonagall's voice trembled as she went on. "That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill the Potter's son, Harry. **

"Why? Why a little boy."

"It says tried." Told Lily.

**But - he couldn't. He couldn't kill that little boy. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Harry Potter, Voldemort's power somehow broke - and that's why he's gone."**

"Prongs has a wicked son." Sirius stated.

**Dumbledore nodded glumly.**

"**It's - it's **_**true?"**_** faltered Professor McGonagall. "After all he's done…all the people he's killed…he couldn't kill a little boy? It's just astounding…of all the things to stop him…but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?"**

"yeah" They all wanted to know.

"**We can only guess," said Dumbledore. "We may never know."**

**Professor McGonagall pulled out a lace ****handkerchief**** and dabbed at her eyes beneath her spectacles. Dumbledore gave a great sniff as he took a golden watch from his pocket and examined it. It was a very odd watch. It had twelve hands but no numbers; instead, little planets were moving around the edge. It must have made sense to Dumbledore, though, because he put it back in his pocket and said, "****Hagrid's**** late. I suppose it was he who told you I'd be here by the way?"**

"**Yes," said Professor McGonagall. "And I don't suppose you're going to tell me **_**why**_** you're here, of all places?"**

"**I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now."**

"NO!" Lily Shouted. "Not Petunia."

"Not even Snivellus deserves to live with her." Sirius said.

"**You don't mean - you **_**can't **_**mean the people who live **_**hear**_**" cried Professor McGonagall, jumping to her feet and pointing at number four. "Dumbledore - you can't. I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find people less like us. And they've got this son - I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets. Harry Potter come and ****live**** here!"**

"Please stop Dumbledore." Remus pleaded.

"**It's the best place for him," said Dumbledore firmly. "His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he's older. I've written them a letter."**

"**A letter?" repeated Professor McGonagall faintly, sitting back down on the wall. "Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These people will never understand him! He'll be famous - a legend - I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter day in the future - there will be books written about Harry - every child in our world will know his name!"**

"That is quite cool though." Said Peter.

"**Exactly," said Dumbledore, looking seriously over the top of his half-moon glasses. "It would be enough to turn any boy's head. Famous before he can walk and talk! Famous for something he won't even remember! Can't you see how much better off he'll be, growing up away from all that until he's ready to take it?"**

"I agree, just take him to live somewhere else. With Sirius, his godfather." Yelled Lily.

"Godfather?" asked Sirius. Lily nodded but gave an apologetic look to Remus.

**Professor McGonagall opened her mouth, changed her mind, swallowed, and then said, "****yes**** - yes, you're right, of course. But how is the boy getting here, Dumbledore?" She eyes his cloak suddenly as though she thought he might be hiding Harry underneath it.**

"**Hagrid's**** bringing him."**

"**You think it - **_**wise**_** - to trust ****Hagrid**** with something as important as this?"**

"Oy!" yelled all the boys in an uncivilised manner.

"**I would trust ****Hagrid**** with my life," said Dumbledore.**

"**I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place," said Professor McGonagall grudgingly, "but you can't pretend he's not careless. He does tend to - what was that?"**

**A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as ****the**** looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up at the sky - and a huge motorcycle fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them.**

2Is it mine?" asked Sirius. "Please let it be mine."

**If the motorcycle was huge, it was nothing to the man sitting astride it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so **_**wild**_** - long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face, he had hands the size of trash can lids, and his feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins. In his vast, muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets.**

"Oh, it's Hagrid." Sirius sounded disappointed.

"**Hagrid****," said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. ****"At last.**** And where did you get that motorcycle?"**

"**Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir," said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as ****he**** spike. "Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I've got him, sir."**

"YES! IT IS MINE!" yelled Sirius.

"**No problems, were there?"**

"**No, sir - house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started ****swarmin****' around. He fell asleep as we were flying over Bristol."**

James wrapped his free arm round Lily as she sobbed a bit into his shoulder.

**Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bet forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby boy, fast asleep. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over his forehead they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning.**

"**Is that where -?" whispered Professor McGonagall.**

"**Yes," said Dumbledore. "He'll have that scar forever."**

"**Couldn't you do something about it, Dumbledore?"**

"**Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground. **

"Too much information." Groaned Sirius.

**Well - give him here, ****Hagrid**** - we'd better get this over with."**

**Dumbledore took Harry in his arms and turned toward the ****Dursley's**** house.**

"**Could I - could I say good-bye to him, sir?" asked ****Hagrid****. He bent his great, shaggy head over Harry and gave him what must have been a very scratchy, whiskery kiss. Then, suddenly, ****Hagrid**** let out a howl like a wounded dog.**

Sirius looked offended.

"**Shhh****!" hissed Professor McGonagall, "you'll wake the Muggles!"**

"**S-s-sorry," sobbed ****Hagrid****, taking out a large, spotted handkerchief and burying his face in it. "But I c-c-can't stand it - Lily an' James dead - an' poor little Harry off ****ter**** live with Muggles -"**

"hagrid is so nice." Murmured Lily.

"**Yes, yes, it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, ****Hagrid****, or we'll be found," Professor McGonagall whispered, patting ****Hagrid**** gingerly on the arm as Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door. He laid Harry gently on the doorstep, took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside ****Harry's**** blankets, and then came back to the other two. For a full minute the three of them stood and looked at the little bundle; ****Hagrid's**** shoulders shook, Professor McGonagall blinked furiously, and the twinkling light that usually shone from Dumbledore's eyes seemed to have gone out.**

"They are all sad." Said James. "For our son."

"**Well," said Dumbledore finally, "that's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations."**

"**Yeah," said ****Hagrid**** in a ****very**** muffled voice, "I'll be ****takin****' Sirius his bike back. ****G'night****, Professor McGonagall - Professor Dumbledore, sir."**

**Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, ****Hagrid**** swung himself onto the motorcycle and kicked the engine into life; with a roar I rose into the air and off into the night.**

"**I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGonagall," said Dumbledore, nodding to her. Professor McGonagall blew her nose in reply.**

**Dumbledore turned and walked back down the street. On the corner he stopped and took out the silver Put-Outer. He clicked it ****once,**** and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps so the Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and he could make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street. He could just see the bundle of blankets on the step of number four.**

"**Good luck, Harry," he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak, he was gone.**

"Good luck." All 5 said.

**A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. ****Dursley's**** scream as she opened the front door to put out milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley…He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter - the boy who live****d"**

James passed the book to Peter. "I'm not sure if I want to read it aloud." Lily sniffed.

"Tuna will be horrible to him, I know it." Remus went over and hugged Lily, James joining in.

"GROUP HUG" yelled Sirius. Peter joined in. Lily laughed, although it was muffled.

"Why don't we read the next bit? See if life gets better for him." Suggested Remus.

* * *

**AN: I really like stories like these so I decided to do one myself. I'm not sure if it is as good as others. If you review you get a cookie, if you don't my friend will **_**moo **_**at you or even hug you which is not nice. **

**I know I'm resorting to threats but I love reviews. They make me feel happy.**

**I**

**I**

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**I**

**I**

**PLEASE REVIEW**

**I**

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**V**

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**YES THAT BLUE BUTTON**

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**THANKS YOUS ALL SO MUCH!!!**


	2. Chapter 2

_Thnanks for all the reviews. I'm sorry I haven't updated for about two years. I forgot my password and then I changed my email address and couldn't remember the one I had used to login._

_I know they're are rubbish excuses but I'm going to try and regularly update from now on._

_I also changed the name, this was originally A werewolf, 3 animagis and Lily read.... but I thought that name wasn't very good._

* * *

Lily held out her hand for the book, smiling as James passed it to her. She skimmed the first page, frowning before grinning at the four boys and starting to read.

**CHAPTER TWO  
THE VANISHING GLASS  
**  
"I think this sounds like accidental magic." Sirius grinned. "But what sort of glass do you think will vanish?"

**Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys' front door; it crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr. Dursley had seen that fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-colored bobble hats - but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby,**

"He still had a stupid name though." laughed James.

**and now the photographs showed a large, blond boy riding his first bicycle, on a roundabout at the fair, playing a computer game with his father,** **being hugged and kissed by his mother. The room held no sign at all that another boy lived in the house, too.**

"Do you think he's gone?" Peter asked, but Lily shook her head, frowning as she read on.

**Yet Harry Potter was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. His Aunt Petunia was awake, and it was her shrill voice which made the first noise of the day.**

**"Up! Get up! Now!"**

"I'd hate to wake up to that." Sirius groaned and Remus laughed.

"You hate waking up." he pointed out.

**Harry woke with a start. His aunt rapped on the door again.  
"Up!" she screeched. Harry heard her walking towards the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the cooker. He rolled on to his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorbike in it. He had a funny feeling he'd had the same dream before.**

"Maybe he can vaguely remember the real thing." Remus smiled.

"Or he can remember a trip on the motorbike with me." Sirius exclaimed.

"Do you think I would ever let my one year old on a flying motorbike?" Lily gasped, looking up from the book and Sirius shook his head nervously.

"Sorry."

**His aunt was back outside the door.  
"Are you up yet?" she demanded.  
"Nearly," said Harry.**

**"Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday."**

"It's his birthday." Sirius sighed exasperatedly. "How many present do you think he'll get?"

**Harry groaned.  
"What did you say?" his aunt snapped through the door.  
"Nothing, nothing ..."  
Dudley's birthday - how could he have forgotten? **

"Don't worry Harry." James spoke to the book. "You probably forgot on purpose."

**Harry got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on.**

"What? Either Petunia's decided she doesn't like being neat any more or she's doing this on purpose."

**Harry was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept.**

"What?" James bellowed, glaring at the book in Lily's hands.

"That's awful!" Remus looked angry, so did Sirius.

**When he was dressed he went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. **

"Seriously, how many did he get?" Sirius asked again, and Lily groaned.

"I don't know." she told him. "Wait and see."

**It looked as though Dudley had got the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike.**

"And they sound expensive." Remus looked shocked while the others looked confused.

"What's a computer, television and a bike?" Peter asked timidly.

"A computers a bulky thing that costs a lot and you play games on it." Lily explained. "A television is a screen where you watch people acting and a bike is like the muggle equivalent of a broom, but it doesn't fly and you need to pedal to make it move. I don't understand why Dudley wants one. They're a form of exercise."

They all agreed with her and she continued reading.

**Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Harry, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise - unless of course it involved punching somebody. Dudley's favorite punch-bag was Harry, **

"What?" James was standing up now, still glaring at the book.

**but he couldn't often catch him. Harry didn't look it, but he was very fast.**

**Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age.**

"What does he think he is, a plant?" Remus laughed. "You don't need light to grow. It runs in the family. No matter how often James exercises, he's still skinny and Lily's tiny."

Lily and James frowned at Remus, who apologized.

**He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was.**

**Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair and bright-green eyes.**

"Like Lily!" James explained. "I'm so happy he had your eyes!"

"Why?" Lily looked at James curiously and he blushed.

"He loves your eyes." Peter said and James glared at him, but Lily looked flattered.

**He wore round glasses held together by a lot of Sellotape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose.**

"Clearly, he's got your bad eyesight, Prongs." Sirius joked.

**The only thing Harry liked about his appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead which was shaped like a bolt of lightning. He had had it as long as he could remember **

Lily sniffed. "Does that mean he doesn't remember us?"

No one wanted to answer.

**and the first question he could ever remember asking his aunt was how he had got it.  
"In the car crash when your parents died,"** **she had said. "and don't ask questions."**

"Don't ask questions." Remus repeated. "That's the stupidest rule I've ever heard."

**Don't ask questions - that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.  
Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon.**

**"Comb your hair!" he barked, by way of a morning greeting.**

**About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry needed a haircut. Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, but it made no difference, his hair simply grew that way - all over the place.**

"Like Potter." Lily groaned. "I was hoping he wouldn't get your hair."

"No Potter hasn't had it." James replied proudly.

**Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large, pink face, not muck neck, small, watery blue eyes and thick, blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel - Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.**

Everyone chuckled, but Peter was in hysterics.

"A pig in a wig." he kept repeating, rolling on floor, oblivious to the look Lily was giving him.

**Harry put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Dudley, meanwhile was counting his presents. His face fell.**

**"Thirty-six," **

"There you go Sirius." Remus said. "He got thirty six."

"That's more than James." Sirius breathed. "That's awful."

**he said, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."**

"And he complains?" James asked.

**"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here under this big one from Mummy and Daddy."**

**"All right then, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face.**

**Harry, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began wolfing down his bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over.**

"I'd hate to live in a house where there was a risk of losing your bacon." Sirius grimaced.

**Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you another **_**two**_** presents while we're out today. How's that popkin? **_**Two**_** more presents. Is that all right?"**

**Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work.**

**Finally he said slowly, "So I'll have thirty ... thirty ..."**

**"Thirty nine, sweetums," said Aunt Petunia.**

Lily looked up weakly. "It keeps getting worse."

**"Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. "All right then."**

**Uncle Vernon chuckled. "Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair**.

**At that moment the telephone rang**

"Telephone?" Peter asked.

"Muggles use it to communicate with one another." Lily answered.

**and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Harry and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a cine-camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games and a video recorder. **

"All of this sounds extremely expensive." Remus sighed.

**He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone, looking both angry and worried.**

**"Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs. Figg's broken her leg. She can't take him." She jerked her head in Harry's direction.**

**Dudley's mouth fell open in horror but Harry's heart gave a leap. Every year on Dudley's birthday his parents took him and a friend to, adventure parks, hamburger bars or the cinema. Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away.** **Harry hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg made him look at all the cats she'd ever owned.**

"What a horrible combination." Peter said. "I hate cabbage and cats."

Sirius glared at him before he could say anymore.

**"Now what?" said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Harry as though he'd planned this.**

**Harry knew he ought to feel sorry that Mrs. Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn't easy when he reminded himself it would be a whole year before he had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, My Paws and Tufty again.**

**"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.**

**"Don't be silly Vernon, she hates the boy."**

**The Dursleys often spoke about Harry like this, as though he wasn't there - or rather, as though he was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug.**

"How can she treat my son like that!" Lily exclaimed, sad. "We used to be friends, can't she even treat him slightly decently."

**"What about what's-her-name, your friend - Yvonne?"**

"Petunia and Yvonne are friends?" Lily wondered. "Before I went to Hogwarts, she hated Yvonne.

**"On holiday in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia.**

**"You could just leave me here," Harry put in hopefully (he'd be able to watch what he wanted on television for a change and maybe even have a go on Dudley's computer.)**

"He's not even allowed to play on Dudley's computer. It's called sharing!" Lily was getting angrier, so Sirius pried the book from her hand, grinned sheepishly and continued reading from where she had left off.

**Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon.**

"I wish." Lily muttered, glaring at Sirius.

**"And come back and find the house in ruins?" she snarled.**

**"I won't blow up the house," said Harry, but they weren't listening.**

"Maybe not on purpose." Remus said. "But he might if he gets really angry."

"That would be funny." Sirius laughed from behind the book.

**"I suppose we could take him to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, "... and leave him in the car ..."**

**"That car's new, he's not sitting in it alone ..."**

**Dudley began to cry loudly.** **In fact he wasn't really crying, it had been years since he'd really cried, but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted.**

"You know," Sirius looked up from the book. "I think Regulus does that, but I was never able to prove it."

"Regulus?" Lily asked, and Sirius frowned angrily.

"Yeah, you might have heard of him, Regulus Black, my brother." Lily's eyes widened, having just made the connection. "Fourth year Slytherin. Mum loves him."

**"Dinky Duddydums,**

Sirius laughed, immediately getting over the previous conversation.

**don't cry, Mummy won't let him spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him.**

**"I ... don't ... want ... him ... t-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge pretend sobs. "He always sp-spoils everything!" He shot Harry a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms.**

**Just then, the doorbell rang - "Oh, Good Lord, they're here!" said Aunt Petunia frantically - and a moment later, Dudley's best friend Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother.**

**Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat.**

**He was usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them.**

"All these muggle children sound very nice." Sirius said sarcastically.

"No one was like this when I was younger, not even…" she paused. Lily was going to say Severus but remembered that no one knew how close they had been before Hogwarts or that he lived near her.

**Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.**

**Half an hour later, Harry, who couldn't believe his luck, was sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in his life.**

"The first time!" Remus sounded disbelieving. "Even I've been to a muggle zoo."

**His aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with him, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Harry aside.**

**"I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry's,** **"I'm warning you now, boy -**

"His name is Harry!" bellowed James, glaring at Sirius.

"Prongs, glare at the book, not me."

**any funny business, anything at all - and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."**

**"I'm not going to do anything," said Harry, "honestly ..."**

None of the Marauders looked very happy.

**But Uncle Vernon didn't believe him. No ever did.  
The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry and it was just no good telling the Dursleys he didn't make them happen.**

"Tuna should know that. It always happened to me."

**Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barber's looking as though he hadn't been at all, had taken a pair of scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his fringe, which she left 'to hide that horrible scar'.**

They all glared at the book.

"If you're going to make him bald at least shave his fringe." Sirius said. "He would look cool then.

**Dudley laughed himself silly at Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and his Sellotaped glasses. Next morning, however, he had got up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off.**

"See, Lily, nothing stops the Potter hair." James shouted, proud.

**He had been given a week in his cupboard for this,**

"You can't look him up for something like that!" James was now screaming at the book.

"Especially not in a cupboard." Lily had joined him. Remus calmed them down, while Peter hid behind Sirius.

**even though he had tried to explain that he couldn't explain how it had grown back so quickly.**

"It's because you're a wizard!" snapped James and Lily together.

**Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old jumper of Dudley's (brown with orange bobbles). The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a glove puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Harry.**

"Imagine if it had fit." Sirius said.

"Surely, at one point it would have been Harry's size." Remus frowned.

"Well then, Petunia's a moron." Lily giggled.

**Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his great relief, Harry wasn't punished.**

**On the other hand, he'd got into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens.**

"What?" Lily asked, and Sirius repeated it.

"How did he do that?" James and Remus asked together.

**Dudley's gang had been chasing him as usual**

"I can't believe that the author can say, as usual, so casually. That's my son they're chasing." Lily fumed.

"Our son." James said quietly, but Lily ignored him.

**when, as much to Harry's surprise as anyone else's, there he was sitting on the chimney.**

"Do you think he apparated?" Peter spoke up from behind Sirius and Sirius shook his head.

"No, apparition is a really weird feeling so he'd have noticed." Remus pointed.

"So my son can just fly then!" James sounded excited, but Lily hit him and he shut up.

**The Dursley's had received a very angry letter from Harry's headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings. But all he tried to do (as he shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of his cupboard) was jump behind the big bins outside the kitchen doors. Harry supposed that the wind must have caught him in mid-jump.**

"Likely." Lily muttered, and the others laughed.

**But today, nothing was going to go wrong. It was even worth being with Dudley and Piers to be spending the day somewhere that wasn't school, his cupboard or Mrs. Figg's cabbage-smelling living-room.**

**While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank and Harry were just a few of his favorite subjects. **

"Why did he mention Harry three times?" Peter asked, and they looked at him. The other Marauders laughed at the question but Lily took pity on the chubby boy.

"It's showing how much he dislikes Harry." she explained, frowning.

**This morning, it was motorbikes. "... roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorbike overtook them.**

**"I had a dream about a motorbike," said Harry, remembering suddenly. "It was flying."**

**Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Harry, his face like a gigantic beetroot with a moustache, "MOTORBIKES DON'T FLY!"**

"Yes, they do!" Sirius yelled. Lily looked at him.

"You know, if you're reading you can't keep interrupting." she growled, snatching the book back. "It's my chapter anyway."

**Dudley and Piers snickered.**

**"I know they don't," said Harry. **"**It was only a dream."**

**But he wished he hadn't said anything. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated more than his asking questions, it was his talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't, no matter if it was in a dream or even in a cartoon - they seemed to think he might get dangerous ideas.**

"So, the Dursley's don't approve of anything Harry does, like have an imagination but allow their fat son to beat people up?" Sirius looked shocked. "At least my mum is slightly consistent with what me and Regulus can't do."

**It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with people. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice-creams at the entrance and then,** **because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry what he wanted before they could hurry him away, they bought him a cheap lemon ice lolly.**

"Well, that was nice," said Remus, sarcastically. "But you couldn't have just got him one anyway?"

**It wasn't bad either, Harry thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head and looking remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn't blond.**

"Sounds like your son would be a good marauder." Sirius said to James, who grinned. Lily frowned, but continued reading.

**Harry had the best morning he'd had in a long time. He was careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys** **so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn't fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting him.**

"I'd just walk far away from them so people wouldn't think I was with them." Peter said.

**They ate in the zoo restaurant and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbockers glory wasn't big enough, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to finish the first.**

"That was nice of him, compared to normal," said Remus brightly.

**Harry felt, afterwards, that he should have known it was all too good to last.**

"That's ominous." Remus frowned at the book.

"Come on Remus, what can he do at a zoo?" James was still smiling.

"He's the son of a marauder." This made James frown.

**After lunch they went to the reptile house.** **It was cool and dark in here, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone.**

"Why do they have stuff like that? Why do you want to see them?" Peter whimpered.

"Wimp!" Sirius teased, but Lily looked at Peter, sympathetic.

"They're not bad because they're all behind glass. The only bad time to go is during feeding when you see them eat live rats and rabbits whole."

Peter shivered.

**Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place.**

**It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car, and crushed it into a dustbin -** **but at the moment it didn't look in the mood.**

"That's disappointing. I'm sure Harry would have loved that!" Sirius cried, but Lily ignored him and kept reading.

**In fact, it was fast asleep.**

**Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils**.

"The place sounds scary!" whispered Peter to Remus, who wouldn't tease him like Sirius.

**"Make it move," he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.**

**"Do it again," Dudley ordered**

**Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.**

**"This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away.**

**Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself - no company except people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard for a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up - at least he got to visit the rest of the house.**

"My son even cares about snakes feelings!" James exclaimed. "You can't get more caring than that!"

**The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were level with Harry's.  
It winked.**

They paused.

"Is that normal?" They looked at Lily.

"At all the reptile houses I've been to, I've never been winked at." she said slowly.

**Harry stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. He looked back at the snake and winked, too.**

**The snake jerked its head towards Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Harry a look that said quite plainly: "I get that all the time."**

There was silence again.

"He's not a Parseltongue." Remus said quickly. "The snake only gave Harry a look."

But the other's weren't sure that that was much better.

**"I know," Harry murmured through the glass, though he wasn't sure the snake could hear him. "It must be really annoying."**

"Or maybe he is a Parseltongue." Remus sighed.

"That's really rare." Lily said slowly. "It's supposed to run in families."

They all looked at James.

"I'm not a parseltongue." he defended himself quickly. "But I still love Harry."

**The snake nodded vigorously.  
"Where do you come from, anyway?" Harry asked.**

**The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry peered at it.  
Boa Constrictor, Brazil.  
"Was it nice there?"**

**The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Harry read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo. "Oh, I see - so you've never been to Brazil?"**

"This is a bit weird. If I discovered I could talk to snakes, I wouldn't ask it where it came from." Sirius frowned. "Maybe there's more Lily in him than we thought."

Lily wasn't sure if that was an insult or not.

**As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry made both of them jump. " DUDLEY! MR DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"**

**Dudley came waddling towards them as fast as he could. "Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in the ribs.**

"What!" James exclaimed, Lily was only calm because she was reading.

**Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened - one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror.**

"What?" James now looked worried. "What's happened?"

**Harry sat up and gasped; the glass front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished.**

"That explains the title." Sirius was grinning.

**The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out on to the floor - people throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.**

"That's what I'd do."

**as the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, " Brazil, here I come ... Thanksss, amigo."**

"He's definitely Parseltongue." James said, not looking happy. "That's really strange."

**The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.**

**"But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"**

**The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as Harry had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg,** **while Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death.**

"Don't you wish that had happened?" Sirius turned to them all. "Good riddance, I'd say."

**But, worst of all, for Harry at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Harry was talking to it, weren't you, Harry?"**

"You moron!" yelled Sirius and James. "Now Harry's in trouble."

Lily looked like she wanted to join in, her knuckles turning white due to how tightly she was holding the book.

**Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go - cupboard - stay - no meals,"**

"No meals!" Sirius and Peter gasped. "Are they trying to starve him?"

**before he collapsed into a chair and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.**

**Harry lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had a watch. He didn't know what time it was and he couldn't be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk sneaking in to the kitchen for some food. He'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as he could remember, ever since he'd been a baby and his parents had died.**

**Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead.**

"Is that?" Sirius looked at Remus in disbelief. "That's Avada Kedavra."

"Harry survived that! But that's impossible."

**This, he supposed, was the crash, though he couldn't imagine where the green light came from.**

**He couldn't remember his parents at all.**

James looked really sad, his fists clenched tightly, while tears began to fall down Lily's cheeks. Remus looked sympathetic, as did Sirius, but Peter looked vaguely uncomfortable.

**His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.**

**When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened; the Dursleys were his only family.**

"Where am I?" Sirius wondered. "I should have come to get him by now."

**Yet sometimes he thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know him. Very strange strangers they were, too.**

"Wizards." Peter said happily.

**A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking Harry furiously if he knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking woman dressed in all green has waved merrily at him once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple cloak had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day then walked away without another word. The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Harry tried to get a closer look.**

**At school, Harry had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated that odd Harry Potter in his baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang.**

Lily stopped, looking sad and slowly closed the book. She ignored their protests.

"I'm going down to lunch." she said. "Do you want to come?"

They nodded, realizing she wasn't stopping them reading more of the book. She put it in her bag and they traipsed out the common room, none of them looking very happy.

However, by the time they got to the Great hall, they were no longer walking in silence but discussing the escaping Boa Constrictor and Harry's other tricks.

Lily sat with them, and they piled up their plates. None of them noticed one Slytherin looking at them in confusion from across the hall.

_

* * *

_

I've been thinking of bringing Snape into the reading group, but I'm not sure. PLease tell me what you would think.

Please review and thanks for reading.


	3. Chapter 3

_Thanks everyone for reviewing, especially LiliaGryffindorsHeir376. I decided to put Snape in but if people don't like him being there, I can easily remove him. This is set during the Christmas of their sixth year._

Chapter 3

When Sirius had finally stopped eating, the five of them left the great hall together. Severus Snape stood up, following them out the room. Just as they reached the grand staircase, Severus caught up with them.

"Snivellus?" James asked loudly. "What do you want?"

Lily told them to go ahead, and they did, albeit reluctantly.

"Snape, what do you want?" she asked.

"What are you doing with them?" he said.

"We're reading a book together." she answered slowly.

"A book? Black reads?"

Lily laughed and Severus blushed slightly. She stopped, and seemed to be considering something.

"You could read with us." she suggested. "You're the only Slytherin here this Christmas, right?"

Severus nodded. "What's the book about?"

Lily flushed in embarrassment. "It's from the future."

She walked away, Severus following closely. "The future? You can't read a book about the future, Lily."

She sighed. "Well, we've already read some, so we can't stop it changing."

Severus accepted this bit of knowledge, and walked with Lily back to the Gryffindor common room, listening to the story so far. He frowned when she said it was about James Potter son, and got really angry when she admitted she was his mother. He looked sad when she told him of her and James' deaths and how he was living with Aunt Petunia.

Just as he was laughing about the escaped snake, they arrived at the portrait of the Fat Lady. The Marauders were outside, frowning.

"What's he doing here?" Sirius asked.

"He's reading with us." Lily answered, and the Marauders started to protest. "He's not bad once you get to know him."

Remus calmed down enough to smile weakly at Snape. "Lily, we're reading in the Gryffindor common room. He can't come in."

"We'll just have to find somewhere else then." Lily walked off again, Severus at her heels.

The marauders followed after realising she had the book, groaning when they realised they were being led to the library.

"Lily! Stop!" they shouted and she drew to a halt, turning to glare at them. "We can't read in there, we'll be too loud. We'll let Snivellus read, just let us show you a better place."

Groaning, Lily followed them as they led them up the stairs, before Remus started pacing in front of an empty wall. Severus raised an eyebrow as a door appeared.

Sirius opened the door, strutting into a well-lit room with comfortable seats. The Marauders sat down as Lily and Severus looked round in amazement.

"Are we going to read about _our_ son?" James whined, looking tauntingly at Severus. Lily ignored him, removing the book from her bag and sitting on an empty couch. She allowed Severus to sit next to her before passing the book to Remus with a smile.

"It's your turn to read." she explained.

Remus opened the book, turning to the correct page before starting to read.

**CHAPTER THREE  
THE LETTERS FROM NO ONE **

**The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Harry his longest-ever punishment. By the time he was allowed out of his cupboard again, the summer holidays had started **

"Did they allow him out to go to school?" Lily gasped, but the Marauders looked at her in confusion. "You know, where you learn to read and write and do maths…"

Remus smiled. "Most purebloods are taught that by their parents and don't go to muggle school because they might accidentally give something away."

Lily still looked shocked.

**and Dudley had already broken his new cine-camera, crashed his remote-control aeroplane and, first time on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches.**

**Harry was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Dudley's gang, who visited the house every single day. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he was the leader.**

**The rest of them were quite happy to join in Dudley's favourite sport: Harry-hunting.**

Severus looked up, shocked. "That's awful." he said slowly and the Marauders looked at him.

"I agree." Lily said and smiled at Severus, looking angry at the same time due to the actions of her nephew.

**This was why Harry spent as much time as possible out of the house, wandering around thinking about the end of the holidays, where he could see a tiny ray of hope. When September came he would be going off to secondary school**

"No he won't." James said and Remus sighed at the interruption. "He'll be going to Hogwarts."

"Most muggle parents don't automatically assume that their nephews are wizards and normally get them places at secondary school" Severus explained, and Lily looked at him again. "But I don't see why Petunia shouldn't expect it."

Lily tensed, but the Marauders didn't notice that Severus knew a name that hadn't been mentioned.

**and, for the first time in his life, he wouldn't be with Dudley. Dudley had a place at Uncle Vernon's old school, Smeltings, Piers Polkiss was going there, too. Harry, on the other hand, was going to Stonewall High, the local comprehensive. Dudley thought this was very funny.**

**"They stuff people's heads down the toilet first day at Stonewall," he told Harry. "Want to come upstairs and practice?"**

"What!" James roared, leaping to his feet. "Why would they do that to my son!"

**"No thanks," said Harry. "The poor toilet's never had anything as horrible as your head down it - it might be sick."**

This calmed James done, and he started laughing.

"Spoken like a true marauder." he said, grinning at Sirius.

**Then he ran for it before Dudley could work out what he'd said.**

"Like that's going to happen." Severus drawled, the Marauders looking at him in shock while Lily giggled. Sirius was making a strange face; as though he wanted to chuckle, but couldn't because it was Snape.

Lily sighed. "Just be nice to him for now. He's just like any of us. While we're reading the book, forget your stupid rivalry."

The Marauders looked shocked, but Remus nodded holding out his hand. Severus took it anxiously.

"Truce." Remus said. James and Sirius stared in shock, while Peter accepted what Remus had done.

James sighed, and held out his hand as well, but only to appease Lily. Severus took it after some persuasion from Lily.

Sirius did nothing but stare at Remus waiting for him to continue.

**One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform, leaving Harry at Mrs. Figg's. Mrs. Figg wasn't as bad as usual. It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one her cats and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. **

"As you would be. When I was younger, I tripped over next doors cat and I hated her since." Lily said, laughing.

**She let Harry watch television and gave him a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though she'd had it for several years.**

**That evening, Dudley paraded around the living-room for the family in his brand-new uniform. Smeltings boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers and flat straw hats called boaters. They also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life.**

"This school sounds awful." It was Sirius. "Bad uniform, mismatching colours and _sticks_. I don't even get how that could be good training."

**As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst into tears and said she couldn't believe her Ickle Dudleykins,** **he looked so handsome and grown-up.**

"Petunia's changed." Severus said weakly, chuckling slightly at the image of Dudley. "She used to have a small sense of humour."

"What?" Sirius snapped, looking at him suspiciously.

"I was Lily's friend for years, I know her sister." Severus snapped back, not revealing that he lived close to Lily.

**Harry didn't trust himself to speak. He thought two of his ribs might already have cracked from trying not to laugh.**

"See that's better." Sirius praised and they all started laughing. "I didn't know Snivellus had a sense of humour either."

Only Remus heard what Sirius had said, and glared at him. "Please try and get along for now."

Sirius groaned as he nodded.

**There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Harry went for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. He went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in grey water**.

**"What's this?" he asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always did if he dared to ask a question.  
"Your new school uniform," she said.**

"What!" Lily shouted, outraged. "You can afford to buy Dudley some stupid outfit but your dying Harry's."

"Dying?" Peter asked timidly.

"Changing it's colour.

**Harry looked in the bowl again.**

**"Oh," he said. "I didn't realise it had to be so wet."**

They all laughed again, but Peter looked confused.

**"Don't be stupid," snapped aunt Petunia. "I'm dyeing some of Dudley's old things grey for you. It'll look like everyone else's when I've finished."**

**Harry seriously doubted this, but thought it best not to argue. He sat down at the table and tried not to think about how he was going to look on his first day at Stonewall High - like he was wearing bits of old elephant skin, probably.**

"Probably." James agreed, looking angry. "But you're going to Hogwarts anyway."

**Dudley and Uncle Vernon came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the smell from Harry's new uniform. Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as usual and Dudley banged his Smeltings stick, which he carried everywhere, on the table.**

**They heard the click of the letter-box and flop of letters on the doormat.**

**"Get the post, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.**

"Nice to see it isn't just Harry he bosses around." Remus smiled at everyone.

**"Make Harry get it."**

**"Get the post, Harry."**

**"Make Dudley get it."**

**"Poke him with your Smeltings stick, Dudley."**

"But he's not supposed to do that." Lily screeched, making Remus quickly read on.

**Harry dodged the Smeltings stick and went to get the post. three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was holidaying on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill and - a letter for Harry. Harry picked it up and stared at it, his heart twanging like a giant elastic band.**

"A what?" Peter asked.

"It's made of rubber." Severus explained. "If you pull it, it springs back to its original shape and they call it twanging."

They looked amazed that Severus knew that, so James asked ( in a civil tone). "Did you take muggle studies?"

"No," Lily answered before Snape had the chance. "He's just a walking encyclopedia."

She grinned so he knew it was joke.

"Like Remus then." Sirius joined in, giving Severus a grin, while Remus frowned, albeit good-naturedly.

**No one, ever, in his whole life, had written to him. Who would? He had no friends, no other relatives - he didn't belong to the library so he'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet, here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:**

**Mr. H. Potter  
The Cupboard under the Stairs  
4 Privet Drive  
Little Whinging  
Surrey**

"I still can't believe he lives in a cupboard." James grimaced, as Severus shook his head in similar disbelief.

**The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp.**

**Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger and a snake surrounding a large letter 'H'.**

"Shouldn't the animal of Ravenclaw be a Raven?" Peter asked and everyone looked at him, nodding slowly as they realized that it wasn't. Everyone was too excited at the arrival of Harry's letter.

**"Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter-bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke.**

"What's a letter bomb?" Peter asked.

"It's an explosive device sent via the postal service, often for terrorist attacks." Lily smiled at Peter.

"They've been used in the muggle world since 1764." Severus added.

**Harry went back to the kitchen, still staring at his letter. He handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down and slowly began to open the yellow envelope.**

"Why slowly?" James asked, wondering why his son wasn't more anxious to open his Hogwarts letter.

"He doesn't know what it is. In the muggle world, we don't use wax seals anymore, so he's probably confused." Lily answered. "I was."

**Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust and flipped over the postcard.**

**"Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk ..."**

**"Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Harry's got something!"**

**Harry was on the point of unfolding his letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of his hand by Uncle Vernon.**

"What!" James yelped. "My son's getting his Hogwarts letter and you can't stop him."

Lily looked really angry, her hands trembling slightly.

**"That's mine!" said Harry, trying to snatch it back.  
"Who'd be writing to you?" sneered Uncle Vernon, shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it.** **His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the greyish white of old porridge.**

"Does anyone actually keep old porridge long enough to know what it looks like?" Sirius wondered, trying to imagine Vernon's face. After a while, he succeeded, bursting into laughter.

**"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped.  
Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it,** **but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line.** **For a moment it looked as though she might faint.** **She clutched her throat and made a choking noise.**

**" Vernon! Oh my goodness - Vernon!"**

"Why is she so shocked?" Lily asked, looking annoyed. "She knows I'm a witch and that I married a wizard so she should know Harry's one too."

**They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Harry and Dudley were still in the room. Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smeltings stick.**

**"I want to read that letter," he said loudly.**

**"I want to read it," said Harry furiously, "as it's mine."**

**"Get out both of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.  
Harry didn't move.**

**"I WANT MY LETTER!" he shouted.**

"You tell him!" James yelled, while Sirius frowned.

"How can Dursley keep that letter from him!" Sirius yelled, grinning.

**"Let me see it!" demanded Dudley.**

**"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon, and he took both Harry and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, slamming the kitchen door behind them.**

**Harry and Dudley promptly had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole; Dudley won,**

"Damn!" cursed James. "Dudley had an unfair advantage by being larger."

s**o Harry, his glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on his stomach to listen at the crack between the door and the floor.**

**"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address - how could they possibly know where he sleeps? You don't think they're watching the house?"**

**"Watching - spying - might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon wildly.**

"Of course not. Dumbledore's just all-knowing." Remus said, grinning at everyone. "He doesn't need to spy to know what's going on."

**"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want - "**

**Harry could see Uncle Vernon's shiny shoes pacing up and down the kitchen.  
"No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer ... yes, that's best ... we won't do anything ..."**

**"But -"**

**"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took him in we'd stamp out all that dangerous nonsense?"**

Lily flushed with anger. "You can't stomp magic out of someone, right Sev?"

Severus started at the nickname. She hadn't called him that for a year. "Yeah. They didn't manage it with me."

The Marauders looked at him in confusion.

**That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before; he visited Harry in his cupboard.  
"Where's my letter?" said Harry, the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed through the door.**

"He fit in the cupboard?" Peter asked in astonishment. "I thought he was too big."

**"Who's writing to me?"**

**"No one. It was addressed to you by mistake," said Uncle Vernon shortly. "I have burned it."**

**"It was not a mistake," said Harry angrily. "It had my cupboard on it."**

**"SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Vernon, and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and then forced** **his face into a smile, which looked quite painful.**

"**Er – yes, Harry – about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking...you're really getting a bit big for it … we think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom."**

"What!" Lily was standing up. "You're fat son has two bedrooms and my son lives in a cupboard!"

**"Why?" said Harry.**

**"Don't ask questions!" snapped his uncle. "Take this stuff upstairs, now."**

**The Dursleys' house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge), one where Dudley slept and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things that wouldn't fit into Dudley's first bedroom.**

**It only took Harry one trip upstairs to move everything he owned from the cupboard into his room. He sat down on the bed and stared around him.**

**Nearly everything in here was broken. the month-old cine-camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over next door's dog; in the corner was Dudley's first-ever television set, which he'd put his foot through when his favourite programme had been cancelled; there was a large birdcage which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air-rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley had sat on it.**

They all laughed.

"That's made out of metal!" Lily gasped through her laughter. "He must be really heavy."

**Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as if they hadn't been touched before.**

**From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother: "I don't want him in there ... I need that room ... make him get out ..."**

**Harry sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday he'd have given anything to be up here. Today he'd rather be back in his cupboard with that letter than up here without it.**

**Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smeltings stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof and he still didn't have his room back.**

**Harry was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing he'd opened the letter in the hall. **

**Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly.**

"Are they angry with each other?" Peter asked. "If they were angry at Harry, wouldn't they be looking at him darkly?"

**When the post arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Harry, made Dudley go and get it.**

**They heard him banging things with his Smeltings stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's another one! Mr. H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive - "**

**With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Harry right behind him. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact that Harry had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind.**

"Harry!" Lily said. "Don't fight."

"Because asking politely is really going to make them give him the letter." Sirius replied sarcastically.

**After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smeltings stick, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Harry's letter clutched in his hand**.

**Go to your cupboard - I mean, your bedroom," he wheezed at Harry. " Dudley - go - just go."**

**Harry walked round and round his room. Someone knew he had moved out of his cupboard and they seemed to know he hadn't received his first letter. Surely that meant they'd try again? And this time he'd make sure they didn't fail. He had a plan.**

**The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning. Harry turned it off quickly and dressed silently. He mustn't wake the Dursleys. He stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.**

"He's got a plan! Yes!" James yelled, while Severus looked anxious.

**He was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first.**

**His heart hammered as he crept across the dark hall towards the front door -  
"AAAAARRRGH!"  
Harry leapt into the air - he'd trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat - something alive!**

**Lights clicked on upstairs and to his horror Harry realised that the big squashy something had been his uncle's face. Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Harry didn't do exactly what he'd been trying to do.**

**He shouted at Harry for about half an hour and then told him to go and make a cup of tea. Harry shuffled miserably off into the kitchen, and by the time he got back, the post had arrived, right into Uncle Vernon's lap. Harry could see three letters addressed in green ink.**

**"I want - " he began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before his eyes.**

"At this rate, he's not going to get into Hogwarts." Severus sighed and Lily looked sad.

**Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the letter-box.**

**See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't deliver, they'll just give up."**

**"I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon."**

**"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruit cake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.**

**On Friday, no fewer than twelve letters arrived for Harry. As they couldn't go through the letter-box they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs toilet.**

**Uncle Vernon stayed at home again.**

**After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed 'Tiptoe through the Tulips' as he worked, and jumped at small noises.**

**On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Harry found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living-room window. While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food mixer.**

**"Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Dudley asked Harry in amazement.**

**On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy.  
"No post on Sunday's," he reminded them happily as he spread marmalade on his newspapers,**

Lily grinned. "That's what he thinks."

They all grinned in anticipation.

**"no damn letters today -"**

**Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Harry leapt into the air trying to catch one –**

They all crossed their fingers, hoping he would catch one.

**"Out! OUT!" Uncle Vernon seized Harry around the waist and threw him into the hall.**

They all looked extremely disappointed.

**When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.**

**"That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his moustache at the same time. "I want you all back here in five minutes, ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!"**

**He looked so dangerous with half his moustache missing that no one dared argue. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding towards the motorway. Dudley was sniffling in the back seat; his father had hit him round the head for holding them up while he tried to pack his television, video and computer in his sports bag.**.

**They drove. And they drove.** **Even Aunt Petunia didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turning and drive in the opposite direction for a while.**

**"Shake 'em off ... shake 'em off," he would mutter whenever he did this.**

"Does he think that's going to work?" asked Severus.

**They didn't stop to eat or drink all day.**

**By nightfall Dudley was howling.**

Remus looked annoyed at the word, but didn't say anything, his gaze darting between Severus and Lily. Severus had seen his expression and was staring at him with anger.

**He'd never had such a bad day in his life.**

**He was hungry, he'd missed five television programmes he'd wanted to see and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer.**

"A what?" Peter asked. "An alien? Why would he want to blow up an alien?"

Lily laughed. "That's a typical muggle game, Peter."

**Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Dudley and Harry shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Dudley snored but Harry stayed awake, sitting on the window-sill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering ...**

**They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.**

**"'Scuse me, but is one of you Mr. H. Potter? Only I got about an 'undred of these at the front desk."**

**She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address:**

**Mr. H. Potter  
Room 17  
Railview Hotel  
Cokeworth**

**Harry made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked his hand out of the way. The woman stared.  
"I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon quickly, standing up quickly and following her from the dining-room.**

"I want someone to bring his letter personally to them." Lily said. "If they keep sending them, he's never going to read one."

**"Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia suggested timidly, hours later, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear her. Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car and off they went again.**

**The same thing happened in the middle of a ploughed field, halfway across a suspension bridge and at the top of a multi-storey car park.**

"He's gone insane!" Remus laughed.

**"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that afternoon.**

**Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car and disappeared.  
It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dudley snivelled.**

**"It's Monday," he told his mother.**

"He's knows the days of the week!" Sirius gasped, grinning at James.

**"The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television."**

**Monday.**

**This reminded Harry of something. If it was Monday -and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days of the week,** **because of television - then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Harry's eleventh birthday.**

**Of course, his birthdays were never exactly fun -last year, the Dursleys had given him a coat-hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks.**

"That's worse than what I get." Severus said, looking sad for himself and Harry.

**Still, you weren't eleven every day.**

**Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling.** **He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought.**

"Do you think he's bought a wand?" Peter gasped, looking at Remus in shock.

"It's probably a gun." Lily answered.

**"Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!"  
It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out to sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain, there was no television in there.**

**"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!"**

**A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowing boat bobbing in the iron-grey water below them.**

**"I've already got us some rations," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!"**

**It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces.**

**After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house**.

**The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls and the fire-place was damp and empty. There were only two rooms.**

**Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a packet of crisps each and four bananas. He tried to start a fire but the empty crisp packets just smoked and shrivelled up.**

"**Could do with some of those letters now eh?" he said cheerfully.**

**He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver post.**

They all chuckled weakly, feeling bad for Harry.

**Harry privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer him up at all.**

**As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. pray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows.**

**Aunt Petunia found a few mouldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door and Harry was left to find the softest bit of floor he could find and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.**

Lily looked outraged. So did James. "How dare they make him sleep like that! They should make Dudley sleep under the thin blanket. He's got enough fat on him to keep warm!"

Sirius, Remus, Peter and Severus glared at the book.

**The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Harry couldn't sleep. He shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, his stomach rumbling with hunger.**

**Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight.**

**The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Harry he'd be eleven in ten minutes' time.**

**He lay and watched his birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all,** **wondering where the letter-writer was now.**

**Five minutes to go. Harry heard something creak outside.**

**He hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in,**

"What!" Lily exclaimed, panicking.

"It won't." Sirius said, attempting to comfort them.

**although it might be warmer if it did. Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that he'd be able to steal one somehow.**

**Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that?**

**And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise?**

Lily's was fiddling with a cushion due to anxiety, while James' leg bounced up and down, something he did when he was nervous.

**Was the rock crumbling into the sea?**

**One minute to go and he'd be eleven. Thirty seconds ... twenty seconds ... ten - nine - maybe he'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him –**

"Go on." Sirius encouraged.

**three - two - one -  
BOOM.**

**The whole shack shivered and Harry sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.**

"Who do you think it is?" James asked, looking excited. "Maybe it's Dumbledore."

"We'll find out." Severus said, holding out his hand for the book. Remus passed it to him with a smile, while Sirius glared at him.

* * *

_Please review and thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it._

_-Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah-_


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